MadManOriginal (in other thread) wrote:What I'd like to see is things that aren't sexy specs but would make phones (and tablets) better in real day-to-day use. For example, better WiFi speed than single stream, better battery life although I know that's just a matter of time and depends a lot on the screen, a genuine focus on audio quality both for headphone and built-in speakers, excellent camera optics although that's a hard one due to basic physical constraints. Otherwise at this point it's more about software than hardware.

I disagree wholeheartedly that it's more about software than hardware! My fantasy device's hardware is nothing like anything out there right now:

Moderate-resolution camera (~3-4MP is fine) with excellent motion and low-light features

Such a device could be my "primary" computing device, leaving my desktop PC more or less purely for gaming; I could take it with me anywhere and when I get where I'm going (work, home, etc), I could hook up my bluetooth keyboard and mouse, hook up a (USB3 for more power!) charger and HDMI, and use it more or less as a desktop. In pure fantasy, I could also hook up my augmented-reality glasses to the device as I go! (◎ヮ◎)

Of course, nobody would ever market such a device:

Fat and unstylish by modern standards

Poor screen quality compared to similarly priced devices

Low megapixel camera unimpressive at a glance

HDMI is a little-used feature on smartphones

Difficult to market expensive and difficult-to-implement "nerd" features (such as fast CPU/GPU or mSATA) to the mass market

Requirement for external headset (bluetooth/wired) or HDMI device for audio

Relatively poor battery life due to high-powered processors (though I'd include a huge removable battery personally)

MadManOriginal (in other thread) wrote:What I'd like to see is things that aren't sexy specs but would make phones (and tablets) better in real day-to-day use. For example, better WiFi speed than single stream, better battery life although I know that's just a matter of time and depends a lot on the screen, a genuine focus on audio quality both for headphone and built-in speakers, excellent camera optics although that's a hard one due to basic physical constraints. Otherwise at this point it's more about software than hardware.

I disagree wholeheartedly that it's more about software than hardware! My fantasy device's hardware is nothing like anything out there right now:

Moderate-resolution camera (~3-4MP is fine) with excellent motion and low-light features

Such a device could be my "primary" computing device, leaving my desktop PC more or less purely for gaming; I could take it with me anywhere and when I get where I'm going (work, home, etc), I could hook up my bluetooth keyboard and mouse, hook up a (USB3 for more power!) charger and HDMI, and use it more or less as a desktop. In pure fantasy, I could also hook up my augmented-reality glasses to the device as I go! (◎ヮ◎)

Of course, nobody would ever market such a device:

Fat and unstylish by modern standards

Poor screen quality compared to similarly priced devices

Low megapixel camera unimpressive at a glance

HDMI is a little-used feature on smartphones

Difficult to market expensive and difficult-to-implement "nerd" features (such as fast CPU/GPU or mSATA) to the mass market

Requirement for external headset (bluetooth/wired) or HDMI device for audio

Relatively poor battery life due to high-powered processors (though I'd include a huge removable battery personally)

Black Applesauce wrote:Wouldnt you want a good display? Having the graphical capabilities that you mentioned, it wouldn't really look as good in contrast to having a nice display.

I'm thrilled you asked! (＝⌒▽⌒＝)

Expensive, high-DPI displays with exotic (AMOLED, etc) technologies are a huge portion of the cost of a top-end smartphone. To keep costs down -- since I'm poor ԅ(≖‿≖ԅ) -- and also to help with battery life, I'd be happy to have a relatively mundane display, since the bulk of the time using the device would be while connected to an external display (and certainly virtually all of the time spent using the high-end GPU).

Using it mobile, I'd mostly just be texting and light browsing, for which the 540p pentile display of my current phone is more than sufficient.

Sure she can, but... This is quite an unimaginative "dream" that girl is having You should always try to "Dream Bigger", as one of the most influential men in the world said once, for example about something like this (my personal "fantasy mobile device"):

With a more flexible display (ideally something where you can adjust the level of flexibility), something similar to plastic (which can't shatter at all no matter how hard you'll drop it):

And, of course, with a holographic projector built-in, to project the virtual keyboard (for people who will still prefer this method of text input):

as well as for projecting a "virtual display", both for 2D:

...and for 3D purposes:

As for overall functionality (and interaction with other devices) that I'd like to see... Watch this video (it's made by Corning, called "A Day Made of Glass"), it will explain it better: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZkHpNnXLB0

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druidcent wrote:I just want a screen that doesn't crack when it gets nudged... :evil:

Gorilla Glass! I threw mine out of my car on the interstate (horseplaying in the car, don't ask) and while the camera broke, the phone screen itself is still totally fine - almost completely unmarked even! My girlfriend had to bend the frame of the phone back into the right shape though, hehehee... (๑・ω-)～♥”

Randomness wrote:Sure she can, but... This is quite an unimaginative "dream" that girl is having :wink: You should always try to "Dream Bigger", as one of the most influential men in the world said once

Ehh, w-well, it's not really unimaginative ... I was just sort of trying to keep it, like, in reality ...(;ﾞ°´ω°´)

I guess saying "fantasy" and then trying to keep it realistic is a bit stupid, but that's how I am; I can only suspend my disbelief so far before my brain goes "no, that's stupid" and discards the idea as too fantastic.

Randomness wrote:With a more flexible display (ideally something where you can adjust the level of flexibility), something similar to plastic (which can't shatter at all no matter how hard you'll drop it):

That's kind of neat, but I don't know why I would want a flexible display... (￣□￣;;) My current phone is Gorilla Glass 2 and I threw it out of my car at >125kph and it's still fine. :lol:

Randomness wrote:And, of course, with a holographic projector built-in, to project the virtual keyboard (for people who will still prefer this method of text input) (image) as well as for projecting a "virtual display", both for 2D: (image) ...and for 3D purposes: (image)

Those are all kind of neat, but I'm pretty sure I'd still rather hook up (figuratively speaking; the input devices would surely be wireless) my physical mouse, keyboard, and display. (ﾟｰﾟ;

Randomness wrote:As for overall functionality (and interaction with other devices) that I'd like to see... Watch this video (it's made by Corning, called "A Day Made of Glass"), it will explain it better: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZkHpNnXLB0 :wink:

Yah, I'm familiar with A Day Made of Glass, but it's kind of a stupid video; almost none of the innovations depicted there actually have anything to do with glass technology. Blah.

Moderate-resolution camera (~3-4MP is fine) with excellent motion and low-light features

Of course, nobody would ever market such a device:

Low megapixel camera unimpressive at a glance

Not necessarily true:http://www.htc.com/www/smartphones/htc-one/With the right marketing it can be relatively easy to promote "quality over quantity" type of feature in cameras. And for those mindless sheeple who don't want to educate themselves about such thing and just want to look at numbers - there's always Samsung

auxy wrote:Expensive, high-DPI displays with exotic (AMOLED, etc) technologies are a huge portion of the cost of a top-end smartphone. To keep costs down -- since I'm poor ԅ(≖‿≖ԅ) -- and also to help with battery life, I'd be happy to have a relatively mundane display, since the bulk of the time using the device would be while connected to an external display (and certainly virtually all of the time spent using the high-end GPU)

Initially - yes, over some time period (as the manufacturing technology will "mature" sufficiently) - they will be "dirt cheap" to make, even the transparent displays with non-destructible flexible "glass" You may even find such watches for $5/piece on the streets of Manhattan in some time in future:

...as for

auxy wrote:I was just sort of trying to keep it, like, in reality ...(;ﾞ°´ω°´)

Well, the flexible glass already starting to appear in reality (Corning Willow Glass), so are the transparent displays, the "virtual infrared keyboard" also exists, so do portable projectors... It's all a matter of time to improve all of this further and combine into a single portable device

Last edited by Randomness on Thu Mar 14, 2013 7:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Hehe, I'm at work, so it's easy to hear the ping of my smartphone when I get a new reply and tab over to the egosearch.

Randomness wrote:Initially - yes, over some time period (as the manufacturing technology will "mature" sufficiently) - they will be "dirt cheap" to make, even the transparent displays with non-destructible flexible "glass" :wink: You may even find such watches for $5/piece on the streets of Manhattan in some time in future: (image) :P

Yah, but the point of my concept was that I could have it like, tomorrow -- if someone were manufacturing it. That is, there's nothing stopping a big company like say ASUS from making a device like I want. Hmm, maybe I should send my idea to them -- they could have the idea, I don't want any money, if they'd just make it (though it'd be nice to get a free unit.) (￣ヮ￣)┌

If you want it "tomorrow" and want the low-cost and low-consumption display, there are more realistic ways, such as simply using e-ink display, like the smartphone from Yota will do:http://www.yotaphone.com/Although it does use a "regular" color LCD too (which increases the device price), which is probably not something you'd want...

But either way such device would be far from my own "fantasy device"

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Randomness wrote:If you want it "tomorrow" and want the low-cost and low-consumption display, there are more realistic ways, such as simply using e-ink display

E-ink has a lot of problems though; I definitely wouldn't want it anywhere near any device I'd use.

Honestly I really like the display on my Motorola Droid X2. It's a 4.3" 960x540 RGBW PenTile LCD; the display itself is fairly unremarkable but the brightness is exceptional (700 nits maximum!) and I really enjoy that, especially in daylight.

Well, in any case, you should totally forget about phones with small, low-res displays since it seems like just about every smartphone manufacturer are trying to stretch their displays and cram more pixels into them (unfortunately even Apple did that... although it's still relatively "comfortable" to operate using one hand) Just look at today's Samsung "phablet" announcement - 5" display, 1080p (441ppi) resolution... Or LG's Optimus G Pro - 5.5" display!

Last edited by Randomness on Thu Mar 14, 2013 8:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Randomness wrote:Well, in any case, you should totally forget about phones with small, low-res displays since it seems like just about every smartphone manufacturer are trying to stretch their displays and cram more pixels into them (unfortunately even Apple did that... although it's still relatively "comfortable" to operate using one hand) :(

Ahaha, well, I don't mind that trend of course; even my 4.3" phone is too big to use with one hand for me. I just like the idea of a mobile device that spends its BOM budget on the SoC and RAM rather than on the display. ┐(￣ヮ￣)┌ If somebody made a "phone" (hell, it doesn't even have to have a cellular modem!) with a proper SSD and HDMI out, I'd sell my motorcycle to get one. (*/ω＼*)

Randomness wrote:With a more flexible display (ideally something where you can adjust the level of flexibility), something similar to plastic (which can't shatter at all no matter how hard you'll drop it):

That's kind of neat, but I don't know why I would want a flexible display... (￣□￣;;) My current phone is Gorilla Glass 2 and I threw it out of my car at >125kph and it's still fine.

When you get home - just watch this video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuwD7pdxxyoGorilla Glass, in its current form (doesn't matter which type/revision), is NOT "shatterproof" - it WILL break, regardless of the phone model/brand. It all depends on how "lucky" you are when dropping (or throwing ) your phone - I also did a lot of accidental drops of my iPhone 4S and its display is still perfect (partially because I use a case for it, though it's not very thick and doesn't cover the display) but I know some people who dropped theirs (or even hit a hard piece of furniture while flailing it around) from a very small height and completely shattered teh displays on their models

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Randomness wrote:Gorilla Glass, in its current form (doesn't matter which type/revision), is NOT "shatterproof" - it WILL break, regardless of the phone model/brand. It all depends on how "lucky" you are when dropping (or throwing :wink: ) your phone

Sure, sure, of course. ┐(‘～`；)┌ It's a crystal; any crystalline structure is vulnerable to shattering. It IS pretty durable tho. I'd definitely like my phone to be as durable as possible, so a synthetic (something like kevlar? bulletproof! ehehe) screen is good, but the flexible part is what I was dubious about.

I mean, I guess smartwatches or whatever are cool but I don't really like using flat touchscreens; I can't even imagine curved ones... (⊙﹏⊙✿)

Well, it can be "flat" during a normal usage and only become "curved" when under heavy stress... Like when someone sits on their phone with the phone still being in the back pocket of their pants Kinda like you can do now with iPhone 5:

Except that teh iPhone 5 is still not fully "glass" so once you "curve" it - you can't "fix" it back

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Randomness wrote:Well, it can be "flat" during a normal usage and only become "curved" when under heavy stress... Like when someone sits on their phone with the phone still being in the back pocket of their pants

BAHAHA! (*≧▽≦)ﾉｼ)) Who the heck puts their phone in their back pocket? Pfff... (*≧艸≦)

My fantasy mobile device (smaller than a tablet) would have to sport:- a conventional high end display but also a rolled up flexible screen that i could extend when i'm sitting at a desk;- a projected keyboard; - USB, eSATA and HDMI connectivity;- a powerfull APU;- a battery that allows me to use it for several days to a week if i don't use the roll out screen, the projected keyboard or demanding programs, just with basic talk and maybe some web browsing;

Most of those features are being or will be implemented in the future, but probably they will never be in a single one, as in one phone to rule the all.

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Arclight wrote:- a battery that allows me to use it for several days to a week if i don't use the roll out screen, the projected keyboard or demanding programs, just with basic talk and maybe some web browsing;

Transparent solar power elements (they already exist, though they are not completely transparent yet) with high efficiency(>50%) will allow people to almost never plug in their mobile devices like this And for times where the lighting is not available - a new "fast charging" battery will allow a complete recharge in less than 10 minutes (the technology already exists, just not in marketable form yet) from personal or public universal high-current induction chargers (which will be built into cars or tables at your local Starbucks or restaurant or your workplace, etc.), so there won't be a need for a very long-lasting battery in future

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Arclight wrote:My fantasy mobile device (smaller than a tablet) would have to sport:- a conventional high end display but also a rolled up flexible screen that i could extend when i'm sitting at a desk;- a projected keyboard; - USB, eSATA and HDMI connectivity;- a powerfull APU;- a battery that allows me to use it for several days to a week if i don't use the roll out screen, the projected keyboard or demanding programs, just with basic talk and maybe some web browsing;

Most of those features are being or will be implemented in the future, but probably they will never be in a single one, as in one phone to rule the all.

This all looks good, except -- having used one of those projected-on-the-desk keyboards before, I have to say it's not very ... good. I'd rather use an on-screen keyboard, actually; that's how bad it is. (;´Д`)

My perfect device would be one that throws all the size and weight sillyness out of the window, and instead focuses on speed, display, and battery life. I don't care if my phone is ¾ of an inch thick if that allows me to not worry so much about where my charger is if I spend an hour talking to someone. The current market of phones seems to have the speed and to some extent the display part down pretty well, but always makes battery life sacrifices to chase some dream of being 2mm thick.

The other beef I have that isn't really the fault of the devices is the abysmal call quality of cellular carriers. Modern streaming audio applications for computers have been capable of amazing quality over a reasonably slow link (CELT, for example, used by mumble sounds very good at 32kbit and amazing at 64kbit) Why can't phones use this, why am I stuck with horrid compression artifacts in the age of high-bandwidth 3G and 4G networks?

SuperSpy wrote:My perfect device would be one that throws all the size and weight sillyness out of the window, and instead focuses on speed, display, and battery life. I don't care if my phone is ¾ of an inch thick if that allows me to not worry so much about where my charger is if I spend an hour talking to someone. The current market of phones seems to have the speed and to some extent the display part down pretty well, but always makes battery life sacrifices to chase some dream of being 2mm thick.

I agree! °˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖°

The endless quest for slim, sleek devices is not of interest to me. щ(ºДºщ)

I don't mind if it's thick enough to fit an OCZ Vector inside, if you do!

SuperSpy wrote:The other beef I have that isn't really the fault of the devices is the abysmal call quality of cellular carriers. Modern streaming audio applications for computers have been capable of amazing quality over a reasonably slow link (CELT, for example, used by mumble sounds very good at 32kbit and amazing at 64kbit) Why can't phones use this, why am I stuck with horrid compression artifacts in the age of high-bandwidth 3G and 4G networks?

Um, well, I think everyone is trying to transition to voice-over-LTE as we turn off old networks (why is 1x still around) and move forward, but those kind of changes to massive infrastructure take a lot of time, you know? (・ヘ・；)

My "fantasy mobile" is my current phone (HTC One S) about 3 mm thicker so that I could get +50% battery capacity. It's fast for apps and gaming and multitasking, it's not a gargantuan monolith, it looks good, the screen is nice, it has plenty of storage, and the software is solid. The only thing I wish it could do is make it from getting up to going to bed without getting down to 20-25%. If I'm going out, I have to remember to charge the phone "just in case" (though I tend to do that in my car).

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do. But what I hate, I do.

derFunkenstein wrote:My "fantasy mobile" is my current phone (HTC One S) about 3 mm thicker so that I could get +50% battery capacity. It's fast for apps and gaming and multitasking, it's not a gargantuan monolith, it looks good, the screen is nice, it has plenty of storage, and the software is solid. The only thing I wish it could do is make it from getting up to going to bed without getting down to 20-25%. If I'm going out, I have to remember to charge the phone "just in case" (though I tend to do that in my car).

Aw geez, that's so boring and practical. (・∀・) Hehe. The One S looks OK; no HDMI is a dealbreaker for me.